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Amnesty and the American Worker (2010)

Executive Summary

Unemployment is at its highest level in 27 years. Since the current
recession began in 2007, the U.S. economy has lost over 8.4 million
jobs, the largest drop since the Great Depression. According to
February 2010 Census Bureau figures, 13.2 million native-born workers
were unemployed — not including those Americans who have been forced to
work part-time, taken temporary work, or who have given up looking for
work altogether. At the same time, there are an estimated 7.5 million
illegal aliens in the U.S. workforce.

The economic opportunities for less-educated native workers have
steadily decreased as illegal immigration has increased. The
correlation is evident and has been identified by a consensus of labor
economists. The influx of uneducated, unskilled illegal alien workers
has created a massive labor surplus at the lower end of the labor
market. Today, the unemployment rate for those without a high school
diploma is over three times that of those who have a college degree.
And wages for the working class have stagnated since the 1970s, widening
the income gap considerably.

There are many out-of-work Americans who want and need the jobs now
being held by illegal aliens. Illegal aliens are doing work not just
that American will do but that Americans are doing. From housekeeping
to meatpacking, food service to construction work, the native-born make
up the majority of workers in these occupations. However, as the share
of illegal aliens rises, jobs available to native workers became scarce,
and their wages and work conditions diminish.

Fewer Americans can now find entry level jobs, which provide valuable
work experience for teenagers and young adults. Wages in many labor
intensive occupations have also been kept low by illegal immigration.
Jobs that once provided for a solid middle class lifestyle now pay so
little and offer so few benefits that workers struggle to support their
families. The argument that there is a labor shortage among
low-educated, low-skilled workers is patently false. As Vice-President
Biden’s chief economic advisor has noted, what is really lacking are
employers who are willing to pay legal workers a fair wage.

Even if the Obama administration’s optimistic job growth projections
materialize, there would still not be enough new jobs to keep up with
the rate of U.S. population growth. In order to put Americans back to
work and strengthen the U.S. economy, the federal government must pursue
an immigration policy that acknowledges the balance between the supply
of labor and the demand for jobs. Securing the border and taking
meaningful action to prevent the employment of illegal aliens would
immediately begin to free up millions of jobs now held by illegal
aliens. Yet, the Obama administration supports amnesty for illegal
aliens, which would continue to put of Americans out of work and keep
wages artificially low for native-born workers.

An amnesty would reward those who broke the law to enter and work in
the illegally U.S., and it would reward the employers who hired them.
Those Americans who compete with illegal aliens for scarce jobs would
continue to suffer. The lesson of the 1986 amnesty should serve as a
model of how not to approach immigration reform, and as a stark reminder
of the promises politicians made then to secure the border and end
illegal hiring practices. For some reason, there are lawmakers today
who want to repeat the failures of 1986 on a massive scale. The 1986
amnesty had terrible consequences for American workers. An amnesty
today would further undermine the position of lower income Americans and
generate enormous fiscal costs that would overburden U.S. taxpayers and
cripple the U.S. economy.

Illegal immigration has become, in effect, an inexhaustible source of
government sanctioned and subsidized low-wage labor, eroding the
welfare of less-educated native-born workers. This report takes a look
at how illegal immigration has put Americans out of work and reduced
wage levels for all workers across broad sectors of the economy. It
also underscores the failure of the 1986 amnesty and the realities of
what an amnesty would mean today. Included in the report are the
following points:

There are 25.8 million unemployed, underemployed, or “discouraged”
U.S. workers. The unemployment rate for workers with less than a high
school diploma: 15.6 percent; with only a high school diploma: 10.5
percent; blacks: 15.8 percent; teenagers: 25 percent; Second Gulf War
veterans: 13.4 percent.

Real wages for American workers have remained stagnant for the past
35 years and the income gap has widened even as the U.S. GDP has
continued to increase. Research has shown that the share of GDP
attributable to immigrant (including illegal alien) labor is split
between the immigrants and their employers.

Between 1980 and 2000 real wages fell for native-born workers with a
high school diploma or less. For certain groups and in certain
sectors, the drop was even greater. Overall real wages for males with
less than a high school diploma fell 22.3 percent, and workers in the
meatpacking industry saw a 45 percent decrease in their real wages
between 1960 and 2002.

Almost half of all adult illegal aliens presently in the United
States do not have a high school diploma, and 30 percent have less than a
9th grade education. They are competing directly against native-born
teenagers and less-educated adults for jobs.

While economic conditions did improve for some recipients of the
1986 amnesty, this was largely confined to those who had the highest
education levels and spoke English well. As a group, however, those who
received amnesty in 1986 showed no upward mobility 15 years later.

The argument that an amnesty would bring in more tax revenue ignores
the fact that the income of most illegal alien households is below the
tax threshold. Instead of becoming net taxpayers, amnesty recipients
would qualify for tax credits, as well as government entitlement
programs. This would cost U.S. taxpayers an estimated $700 billion a
year.